admin Gucci, Saint Laurent and Alexander McQueen are among the fashion brands which have pledged to stop using models who are under the age of 18.
Kering, the French luxury fashion group which owns the brands, announced they would stop hiring under-18 models to represent adults for both catwalk shows and advertising campaigns.
Francois-Henri Pinault, Kering’s chairman and chief executive said in a statement, “We are conscious of the influence exerted on younger generations in particular by the images produced by our houses. We have a responsibility to put forward the best possible practices in the luxury sector and hope to create a movement that will encourage others to follow.”
The policy will come into effect early next year, in time for the 2020-2021 autumn/winter collections.
Marie-Claire Daveu, the group’s chief sustainability officer said, “The physiological and psychological maturity of models aged over 18 seems more appropriate to the rhythm and demands involved in this profession.”
Condé Nast, which publishes Vogue magazine, made a similar declaration in September last year. It vowed to stop using under-18 models in editorial shoots unless they were the subject of an article.
Vogue announced in its editorial, “Vogue, along with a number of other publications, has played a role in making it routine for children – since that’s what they are – to be dressed and marketed as glamorous adults.”
“No more: It’s not right for us, it’s not right for our readers, and it’s not right for the young models competing to appear in these pages. While we can’t rewrite the past, we can commit to a better future. Promising teens will continue to be signed, no doubt, but agencies will need to invest more time and resources in their models’ development, particularly as they adapt to the demands of video and social media.”
Founder of the campaign group Model Alliance, Sara Ziff, described Kering’s decision as “a positive step towards eliminating the intense pressure models currently face to maintain an adolescent physique and to go to extremes to lose weight”. However she also warned that that it lacks a “mechanism for actual enforcement” and that she fears the pledge could “amount to little more than lip service to critical issues that have plagued the industry for far too long.”
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